The Harvard men's hockey team wasn't playing its best hockey of the season last night, but it was good enough to win.

The Crimson (9-1-3 ECAC, 9-3-3) defeated Rensselaer (4-9-0 ECAC, 10-11-0) by the score of 5-1 in front of 3095 ecstatic fans at Bright Arena last night.

Harvard looked noticeably sluggish after its 20-day layoff, but managed to combine solid defense with timely offense to beat its foe from New York.

"It's a good sign that we were able to win considering that we came out as flat as we did," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said.

Harvard senior goalie Allain Roy came up with another monster performance, recording 25 saves. He managed to keep the Engineers at bay, while Harvard's offense sputtered.

"Roy kept us in the game for the first two periods," Tomassoni said. "He was terrific."

The Crimson defenders, led by senior Brian McCormack and sophomore Lou Body, didn't lose their pace over the break. They succeeded in keeping the pressure on their RPI counterparts for most of the night.

Physical RPI

The traditionally physical RPI squad played true to from last night, but it couldn't get the job done. The team only managed to rack up a lot of penalty minutes minutes without significantly slowing down Harvard's finesse attack.

"They try to mug you and get you off your game, but they just don't match up to us in talent," said senior forward Tim Burke, who notched a goal and an assist.

Last night's win assured Harvard of at least a share of first place in the ECAC going into today's action.

The Crimson came out flat in the first period, undoubtedly suffering from the effects of its inaction.

Despite having two power play opportunities and control of the puck for most of the first period, Harvard couldn't score, setting for a scoreless tie after 20 minutes.

It didn't take Harvard long to remember how to score. The Crimson erupted with four unanswered goals in the second period to put itself ahead for good.

With 21 seconds elapsed into the period, Burke broke away from the pack and pushed a shot past RPI netminder Neil Little, who had a nightmarish night between the twines.

Harvard tallied again at 10:53 when junior Steve Flomenhoft flipped a puck in off a feed from Burke.

With the teams skating 3-on-3 after a short-lived brawl, freshman Steve Martins managed to score at 13:01 when Little was caught out of position trying to stop an errant shot by Body.

Martins collected his second goal of the night a few minutes later when he punched an amazing off-balance shot into the net during a Harvard power play to give his team a 4-0 lead.

After being held scoreless by Harvard for five periods this season, RPI finally tallied when freshman Wayne Clarke beat Roy just over five minutes into the final period.

Harvard junior Matt Mallgrave tacked on his team's fifth goal at 14:40 when Little got caught behind the net trying, obviously unsuccessfully, to control the puck.